At least that's what Gonzalez, the deputy public defender who is challenging Hallinan in the November election for district attorney, would like San Franciscans to believe.

The Stanford-educated lawyer complains that Hallinan has not kept his 1995 campaign promises -- many of the same promises the 34- year-old Gonzalez is making now.

"He has failed the progressives who voted for him by not prosecuting any police brutality or political corruption cases," Gonzalez said. "He's too harsh on marijuana users and has only taken one landlord to court for an illegal eviction."

Gonzalez says he would create a special unit dedicated to prosecuting bad landlords, refuse to prosecute many marijuana cases, go after political corruption, file police brutality cases and impose a moratorium on death penalty prosecutions in San Francisco.

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Gonzalez has worked for eight years in the San Francisco public defender's office and is now a senior trial attorney. Though his job has been to defend those accused of crimes, Gonzalez says he'll have no problem working on the other side of the fence.

"I became a public defender to help people," he said. "I'm running on the same ideology. I don't think there is anything shocking about a good trial lawyer running for this office. The best (D.A.) is a person with integrity, good personal skills and someone you don't have to guess what his position is on issues."

Gonzalez said he started forming his political views as a student at Columbia University, where he studied political theory and comparative literature. He was raised in McAllen, Texas, where his parents operated their own businesses. His mother was born in Mexico and his father in Laredo, Texas.

After earning a degree from Columbia in 1987, Gonzalez moved to the Bay Area to attend law school. During his Stanford years, he was an editor for the law review, served as a research assistant to the dean of the law school and worked for the California Appellate Project, handling death penalty appeals pending in California.

"I think Matt is tremendously intelligent and ethical," said Gonzalez's boss, Public Defender Jeff Brown. "I think as district attorney he'd be very judicious -- not just grabbing headlines. He'll probably wear the same suit every day and ride the bus to work and not attend any state dinners. But that's just Matt."

Some people question whether Gonzalez, if elected district attorney, would cut too many deals with his old friends at the public defender's office. Brown's response: "I don't know if anyone could be giving more deals away than what's being given now."

Hallinan has been criticized for having the lowest conviction rate in the state on felony cases -- a figure the district attorney disputes. Brown originally endorsed the incumbent, but withdrew his support in favor of Gonzalez.

"He's a pretty brainy guy," Brown said. "And we would be pretty sorry to lose him."

Gonzalez, a political newcomer, had been considered a long shot. However, the candidate has drawn praise for his detailed analysis of the district attorney's office and for his straightforward platform.

"Matt has come across as a very credible and impressive candidate," said Peter Keane, dean of Golden Gate University Law School and former chief attorney for the San Francisco public defender's office. "I watched him develop as a trial lawyer and saw how juries were always taken with his heartfelt delivery, and I think that's what's happening here."

Keane called Gonzalez a "throwback to the '60s and '70s."

"Nowadays, politicians are terribly afraid of being labeled a liberal," he said. "But Matt is a genuine leftist intellectual. And most astonishing is he's running for district attorney. Anywhere other than San Francisco, that would be an anomaly."

For Gonzalez it was a logical choice.

"I see firsthand what's going on in that office," he said. "They need more prosecutors in the courtroom and more experienced prosecutors issuing cases."

Gonzalez said he would assign more prosecutors to try preliminary hearings. Under the current system, he said, there are too few to handle the large load, and cases are getting short shrift.

Gonzalez said he would not allow prosecutors to try felonies until they had at least 12 misdemeanor trials under their belts.

If elected, the candidate plans to assign two to four lawyers to a unit that would prosecute landlords who break the law. Gonzalez rents in the Mission District and says he understands the plight of San Francisco's tenants.

The candidate would also like to have a team of two prosecutors handle environmental cases.

He says he would never seek the death penalty.

"The district attorney of San Francisco should set an example for the rest of the state and help lead the charge for abolition throughout the United States," Gonzalez's campaign literature says. "Jurors in San Francisco have consistently refused to impose the death penalty. Nevertheless, prosecutors continue to charge special circumstances and proceed with death penalty cases, at an enormous cost to taxpayers, so as not to be perceived as soft on crime."

The candidate believes that no marijuana sale involving less than an ounce of pot warrants a felony conviction. He promises to make thorough inquiries into every allegation of police brutality and says he would publish the office's findings in any police shooting resulting in death.

While some have likened Gonzalez's platform to that of Hallinan's in 1995, Keane said the candidate reminds him more of the district attorney's father, longtime activist Vincent Hallinan.

Keane said, "He was the lion of liberal politics in San Francisco's legal community."